Training for a Japanese wrestler is not easy. The training of our college boys for an athletic event is child's play In comparison. It is not unusual for a novice to be gashed and bleeding after being knocked about the hard gravel of a private arena. Young students come out at 4 on cold mornings and train until 8. Their fat and muscles are hardened by constant ramming at wooden posts and their heads are hardened by being pushed rigorously against walls. Yet it is a career any boy in Japan's villages aspires to who throws more than the average number of local rivals.
    A champion today has 150 or 160 "hands" or devices at his disposal. The aim, a worthy one certainly, is the maximum of force with the minimum of disturbance.
    Wrestlers are classified into nine grades, of which only the first three or four have professional importance. In each camp there are three leading lights. The champion, the O-zeki, or second champion; the Seki-waki, or second assistant-champion; the Komusubi, the assistant to the second assistant champion. The supreme champion is called the Tokodzuna, but there have only been a score of these since Japanese wrestling started in the prepagoda period.